AT THE COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY
JUNE 1, 1906
Mr. President; Ladies and Gentlemen; and you in
particular, Members of the Graduating Class:
What I have to say will be largely to supplement
what Congressman Burton has said and to empha
size one or two points that he made. In speaking to
any body of graduates, I always feel like laying par
ticular stress upon two points. The first point is the
necessity that the graduate shall have high ideals;
and the next point is that those ideals shall be prac
tical, so that it is possible to come measurably near
living up to them. I always distrust a sermon in
which there is insistence upon a line of conduct
which can not possibly be achieved, because I feel
that those who most enjoy such a sermon on Sun
day are apt to be those who live farthest away from
it on week days. We must insist upon high ideals.
If there is not such a high standard set before us
then indeed will our fall be miserable. We are
never going to come quite up to the standard, and
it is necessary that the standard should be raised
aloft. My plea is that it should not be raised so far
aloft as to make us feel the minute that we come
to apply ourselves practically that there is not any
use of striving after it at all. I want to see in the
breast of each man and each woman here on the
stage, of each man and each woman here in the audi
ence, the firm purpose to strive after what is high
and honorable, and at the same time a practical real
ization of the difficulties to be encountered, which
will make you have before you something to which
you hope you can measurably attain.
I want each man here who is graduating, each
girl here who is graduating, to feel that in the first
place he or she must be able to keep himself or
herself. You men here, who are going into the law,
into medicine, you who are going to teach, your
first duty is to achieve so much of material success
as will enable each of you to keep himself and to
be a help and not a burden to those closest dependent
upon him. Probably there are several of your num
ber to whose families your college years have meant
considerable self-denial so that the son could get the
advantages of education. The man to whom so
much of practical family affection has been given
owes it not only to himself but to those who must
be far dearer than himself, to achieve the material
success that will justify their self-sacrifice as well
as his effort. I would not for one moment say to
any man that he must not regard material suc
cess. On the contrary, he must regard it. The
material well-being must be the foundation-stone
in his career; he must pull his own weight first be
fore he can be of use to any one else. If you are
not able to help yourself, to keep yourself in food,
clothing, shelter, to keep those dependent upon you
in food, clothing, shelter, you can not possibly help
any one else. On the contrary, you will be a bur
den upon others. Therefore, you can not afford
to neglect the duty of providing for yourself the
material success which is indispensable if you
are to count as an element of help in the lives of
those to whom you owe most. I do not wish to
see any college graduate leave an institution like
this with his eyes so firmly fixed upon the stars
that he forgets that he has got to walk on the
ground.
There must be in the first place the foundation
of successful effort, the ability to earn a little more
than your keep, before you can count for anything
else in life. So much for the purely practical side
of idealism ; that is, the foundation. Without that
as a foundation you can no more build a superstruc
ture than you could erect this building if you did
not have a foundation. There are any number
of utterly foolish people, who pride themselves upon
being practical people, who think the foundation is
all. If there was only a foundation here you could
not form any idea of what building might be put
upon it; it might not be at all like a church. So
with the character of every man, he must have as
a basis the foundation of material success ; but that
is only the beginning, and if on that he builds badly
it would be better that the foundation had never
been laid. If he builds ill on the foundation, then
it would be better that he had not had in him the
power to achieve material success at all. As soon
as you have achieved that measure of success which
means your ability to hold your own, then you are
false to the teachings of your alma mater, you are
false to every worthy tradition of the social and
religious life, if you do not in good faith turn to
with the resolute effort to make those who are not
as well off as you are a little bit better because of
the exceptional opportunities that you have enjoyed.
You can render that service in more than one way,
and there are several indispensable ways in which
you must render it if it is to be rendered at all.
And mind you, when one speaks the deepest truths,
they are bound to be so homely that they almost
seem trite in the repetition. The first indispensable
prerequisite to bettering your fellows is to better
those that are nearest to you in everyday life. I
have a profound distrust for the individual with the
philanthropic longing to do good to mankind at
large, whose own wife and children do not first
experience the effects of that philanthropy. The
first and most important field in which to show your
fealty to a high ideal is in the field of the family.
If the man is a good husband, son, father, if the
woman is a good wife, mother, daughter, neither
has accomplished all, but each has gone a good way
toward it, each has taken the most important step
toward it.
To you on this platform much has been given,
and from you rightfully much will be expected. I
was pleased to hear Congressman Burton dwell with
such emphasis upon the fact that it is not the col
lege days that are happiest, just, Mr. Burton, as I
was glad to hear you dwell with even greater em
phasis upon the praise of honest effort, whether it
is crowned or not with what we call success. There
are exceptions, of course, but, speaking generally,
it is not true that the college days are the happiest,
just as it is not true of any really worthy man or woman
that, looking back on life, he or she will say that
the times were happiest when there was least to do.
The highest law of life is the law of worthy effort.
The greatest chance that can come to man or woman
is the chance to do something worth doing. You
have not the right stuff in you if you look back at
the easy or effortless days as being the days that
were happiest. The days that are happy are the
hard days out of which you win triumph, the hard
days where effort is crowned at the end.
I have spoken to you to-night simply as I should
speak to any body of American college graduates.
Yet each of you has an additional responsibility to
bear beyond the responsibility that every college
graduate in this land must bear. You are those
of your race to whom most has been given, and in
addition to the burden of honorable obligation rest
ing upon you as educated American citizens, to do
your duty by the commonwealth, rests the burden of
honorable obligation so to carry yourselves that your
lives may be a guide and an inspiration to all of the
people of your race, that your lives may justify your
race in the eyes of the American people. The rights
of each man are important, but his duties are more
important still. If the duties are well done, sooner
or later in a time to be measured only by the in
scrutable working of Providence, the rights will
take care of themselves.
And, oh, my fellow-citizens, I ask of each of you
the fullest and most generous performance of duty
in accordance with the highest sense of
obligation toward your Creator and toward your
brethren, not only for the sake of our nation
as a whole, but for the sake of that portion
of our nation which belongs to your own race in
particular.